Thomas

You wouldn't by chance happen to work for them? Frankly to say,I am a sales of HighEasy company . But you are suggested to try HighEasy brand DVR card. You could google search to our web, then to email us. Thanks in advance Eddie HighEasy Co. / CSST (New York Stork Exchange symbol:CSR) And you are invited to read this thread: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3142. Feel free to edit your post to bring it in line with those guidelines. Both of your posts in this thread are in violation of those guidelines. I'm sure you would prefer to not start your posting history here with an act of rudeness by not reading and following the rules and guidelines that have been set down.

You wouldn't by chance happen to work for them?

You're going to have to write this on your own. What you need pretty much goes against a common assumption when doing UI design for CCTV. From design standpoint you'd have to record all of that video, or buffer it. For five hours you'd find buffering out of the question. It really comes down to the following, which is going to be more expensive to change; your expectations or your budget.

Actually there is a reason you can sometimes see worse image quality with a DVR over a VCR. DVR's, both embedded units and PC based systems are much, much less forgiving of poor signal. There is a quick and dirty test to show if that's the issue. Feed the signal into a VCR/DVD Player/Something with a TV in and out. Take the output and run it to the DVR. If the signal is better, then you're looking at a poor signal.

I've posted in the thread, and I'm giving him one last chance to play nice.

Ugh...I got to play with the embedded version of Windows....simple and a massive pain in the ass both at the same time.

Most likely not. A lot of ISP's block SMTP traffic from their users and generally with good reason. SMTP is a mail transfer protocol designed to move mail between servers. It isn't intended to send mail from a server to a client. For example, Outlook doesn't use SMTP to transfer mail. The reason for this is that SMTP doesn't have authentication built into it. It was designed with the idea that all servers could be trusted to be who they say they are. And it's old enough that it predates spam as an issue. The problem with from the ISP perspective is two fold: 1. Spam. If a user's computer gets taken over, it can start spewing out spam in bulk. A number of major ISP's started banning port 25 traffic and there was a noticeable drop in spam. 2. Money. End users generally shouldn't be hosting e-mail servers. They are notoriously hard to configure correctly and safely. Failure to do so generates technical support calls. Also, users using e-mail servers tend to use a lot more bandwidth then the average home user. So ISP's want those users on more expensive business class plans. So what can you do about it? Most likely...nothing. A call to your ISP will generate the following response. "Sir, we do not block any ports." This isn't true. But they aren't going to change it for you. Eventually you may get to level 2 support who admits they do block that port. And they still aren't going to do anything about it. Upgrading your package from your ISP can help but it can also be very expensive.

I agree, they are all DVR's because they are all Digital Video Recorders. However, the security market has come to define an analog only recorder as a DVR and IP only recorder (or software) as an NVR short for Network (Camera) Video Recorder. However, both connect to the network/internet for remote viewing so they are really both "Networkable" Video Recorders as well! ha But let's talk about the middle ground and that is the Hybrid Recorder. No one has come up with a nifty acronym yet for that one that I know of. How about the HVR? he he Now we can confuse the market even more. By the way, an HVR (<--- new official term according to me) can record both analog and IP cameras and therefore can provide flexibility for those who have or want to use analog cameras along side IP cameras. I guess I should point out that most IP recording and management solutions allow you to convert an analog camera to an IP camera by using what is called a video server. However, I would also like to point out that if you want to use a lot of analog cameras (which is sometimes a good choice) this is way too expensive and all those little boxes are quite a clutter in the back room. A hybrid recorder basically has the Analog to IP converter built-in (at least that's a good way to think about it) which makes it cost effective and clean .. when mixing analog and IP in the same system. While we are on the subject of confusing misnomers should we talk about the fact that we call linux-based systems embedded systems when in fact it is not an embedded system? ha ha I think I'll save that for another time. Cheers. Dave 3xLogic, Inc, There are versions of linux intended to run on embedded platforms. And while there are some units calling themselves embeded when they are just PC's, using linux as an OS doesn't make something not embedded.

What is your budget?

Are you in the US or outside the US? At the very least you'd have to post signage. You won't be able to do a covert use of the mic at all if that's what you're planning. And even then at 70 ft there is a strong argument for a reasonable expectation of privacy. And be aware that audio recording doesn't even begin to fall under the same rules/laws as video recording. The Federal guideline in the US is one party to the conversation must be aware they are being recorded. Some states and cities have more stringent rules. Please note the following: One party in this situation is defined as a person taking part in the conversation. A property owner not present, does not count as a party. The person who pays for the phone line does not count as a party if they are not actively part of the conversation.

Generally most PTZ cameras are out of reach for home budgets and you really only get the most value out of them if you have someone actively monitoring it.

Not if you setup your security properly on your switch. Per-port MAC filtering, 802.1x, vlans. Also Zyxel has a really cool feature called Intrusion Lock on there switches for security. Once you plug in all off your devices you can turn on a setting that if a device gets unplugged the switch disables the port. There is no way of hooking anything up to that network wire until you log into the switch thought the Local console port on the switch. Making your install very secure. And yet you still haven't addressed how you prevent compromised cameras. That prevents a simple disconnection or adding hardware for a variation of a man in the middle attack. But keep ignoring that Vivotek has an open vulnerability with it's activeX control that was identified in Feb and still not fixed. Or the reports of D-link cameras being affected by the same vulnerability and actively being exploited in the wild. Well I would never recommend Vivotek or D-link for anything important. And I would not allow direct access to the cameras. Setup mac address filtering so only the NVR can access the cameras. And what about Axis? Did you miss the wonderful admin password bypass they had a few years ago which would allow root telenet access? Or the Mobotix cross-site scripting issue this year? And too many companies design their software to require the clients to have direct access to the cameras to see a live stream. Lensec does that with their software. So do a number of other companies. So you can pretend that proper network setup is all that needs to happen, but too many camera manufacturers and software developers are working against you on it. The IP side of the industry is spending way too much time working on features and not enough working on fundamentals.

Not if you setup your security properly on your switch. Per-port MAC filtering, 802.1x, vlans. Also Zyxel has a really cool feature called Intrusion Lock on there switches for security. Once you plug in all off your devices you can turn on a setting that if a device gets unplugged the switch disables the port. There is no way of hooking anything up to that network wire until you log into the switch thought the Local console port on the switch. Making your install very secure. And yet you still haven't addressed how you prevent compromised cameras. That prevents a simple disconnection or adding hardware for a variation of a man in the middle attack. But keep ignoring that Vivotek has an open vulnerability with it's activeX control that was identified in Feb and still not fixed. Or the reports of D-link cameras being affected by the same vulnerability and actively being exploited in the wild.

Facial identification is really more about camera placement rather then camera type. Are you trying for facial ID's over a wide area (more then a few feet)?

Thomas, when you say expose, do you mean letting users connect directly to the cameras rather than through the NVR/IP Video surveillance software? Correct. Allowing the users to be able to directly access the cameras allows for all kinds of potential chaos. You don't have to allow direct access to the cameras. Most of the time I just set up a access for the NVR software unless the customer requests it. Except that a there are a number of enterprise level programs that open a direct stream from the client to the camera. Which means that subnetting or using the NVR as a bridge just doesn't work. So you end up with cameras that are on the same network as the users. And this is talked up as a feature with claims that it reduces CPU load on the NVR. Never mind the potential security flaws it creates. The worst thing I can do to an analog camera simply take it out of viewing. With IP based cameras you can end up with a device that can compromise your network. My favorite nightmare scenario is the compromised OEM. If we have an incident in which some factory in China begins spewing out rooted cameras, you could end up with thousands of compromised networks. Even assuming that your statement means that you subnet or place the cameras on an entirely different network, that's not how the majority of the manufacturers or software houses are assuming they will be set up. So while you may doing it correctly, do not assume that what you do applies to the industry as a whole.

Thomas, when you say expose, do you mean letting users connect directly to the cameras rather than through the NVR/IP Video surveillance software? Correct. Allowing the users to be able to directly access the cameras allows for all kinds of potential chaos.

The problem isn't just a matter of securing the switch. The cameras themselves pose a security risk. Axis had a rather nice cross-site scripting issue that allowed root control of the camera itself. And given that at the same time it was reported that Axis was sending usernames and passwords as plain text. The major issue on the IP side that people don't want to talk about is that there are a lot more design issues in play. Cameras need to not be exposed to users. And a large number of software designers encourage the opposite because it lets them say "We can handle 80 cameras" because they are too lazy to transcode. There is no damn reason to be handing off multiple mega pixel streams in a multiplexed set up users who can't display all of that at max resolution anyway. I'm not saying IP isn't what we'll use in the future, or that IP is bad, but I am saying there are a lot of damn elephants in the room that people aren't talking about.

Generally to display four cameras on a single monitor, the DVR requires a multiplexer. Most of the time that's pretty standard but from what you're discussing....you're shopping at the low end. So what ever you go with, make sure check the features to see if a multiplexed output is on the list. And since you're going with wireless, have you guys planned how you're going to get power to those locations?

There are video encoder options you can use. Axis makes the 241Q which would support both cameras and in essence turn them into IP Cameras.

I'm somewhat confused. Why would you use an off-set over reviewing recorded video?

No.

They are like any other camera in that they are a tool. Sometimes they are the right tool for the job, other times they aren't.

I not sure I understand what that means. Do I take the 4 RS485 wires from each camera and combine the same colour to a terminal, so I end up with all the red to one terminal, all the green to another, etc? It's a series of screw down terminals that all share a set of connectors. You'll take one wire and connect it to one series of screw downs. Then do the same for the other one. Now pretend the next set of screw downs is a splice and wire the PTZ to it. Then repeat for the next set of screw downs.

It generally depends on the quality of the controller but with 4 arrays set up, I'd look into a external controller card.

With that being said.. is it just me that notices quality goes down slightly on hardware compression cards? vs Software compression? It tends to depend on the quality of the codec used for the hardware and software. It's easier to get a better picture out of a software codec, you can allow for greater use of resources. And over time you can upgrade a software codec.